OnStage Blog: In response to Brad Pontius’ piece, I do agree that it’s okay for theater to be competitive, but he fails to mention one major part of theater. It was born of competition. In Ancient Greece, plays were performed and playwrights were able to showcase their skills for the chance to win money and fame. The City Dionysius Festival was the Super Bowl of Ancient Greece. The reason that we have some of these plays exist is that they beat the competition, or they were able to stay intact, either way, they won the historical lottery. Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Aeschylus all won that competition and that’s why their work is still performed today. Don’t belittle theater to keep an aspiring actor from realizing what it is; pure competition.
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I can count more than I want the number of times where I was sitting in an audition and someone came in “needing” a certain role. Maybe they were trying to fill their portfolio of played characters or maybe they really needed the money. Let’s face it, competition exists and it’s not just among the actors. Designers compete against each other, even stage crews can be seen as competing, though often times this is more friendly a competition but also too, stage crew compete for work as well. It’s the only way for some to survive. I’ve seen fierce competition in action and I’ve seen directors precast every role and still hold auditions because they want to see future talent. Life is a game and there is no prize for winning. For each time you win, someone else loses and there will be plenty of times where you lose. If you “need” the job, you’re in it for the wrong reasons, I think.
This article has a very strong opinion on the competitive nature of theater. I don’t think it is incorrect, but I think it is a little overbearing. Yes, theater is a competition. If you want the job you have to show that you are better than the person next to you and there may be thousands of people next to you. But what I think is really important about theater is that it is also a very collaborative process. You are always working and developing with people to make art as a single artist and as a collective to make art as for a single show. This intense competitive attitude might get in the way of this. You have to be able to work with and be open with the people you are collaborating with, not just always competing with them which might diminish and be destructive to the collaborative nature that is integral to the creation of theater.
I think that theatre is such an weird dynamic in terms of competition and collaboration. I have certainly seen actors walk into an audition laser focused on getting a role working as hard as they can to get a certain role. In a school environment this can become toxic and even detrimental to the learning environment. But the other side of that coin that I find so interesting is in terms of the designers and how in at least my experience they seem to still work together and work through each others ideas fighting for something just ending up pushing each other to create a better end product. And in the end all of these people need to be able to work in collaborative and community environments as that is what theatre is as the ultimate team activity. Maybe one day we'll see a change in this focus but as long as peoples careers and lives are on the line this idea that you need something will stay true.
“Theater is work, theater is pain, theater is blood, sweat, and tears, but at the end of the show when that audience is roaring with applause and the cast and crew all know that they put on a perfect show, no muck-ups, no missed cues, no mishaps, that’s why we compete for roles and jobs, that’s why we thrive.” The theater world at its core is incredibly competitive and will always be. On stage, it’s about who’s the fittest, who’s the prettiest, who fits the role best. Behind the scenes, designers face the same type of competition, except its who has the best design idea, the more experience, the better connections. Everyone is replaceable, and when you get the “ideal” or “perfect” job, there will be people waiting in line to fill that spot if you fail. Part of that is the thrill of this job and this profession, and you have to know that that is what you are getting into when you step into this industry.
I agree that there is a lot about theatre that is inherently competitive. That’s a truth best left unvarnished. But I think this article is boiling things down a little bit too far. Understanding that there’s more to theatre than competition – that often there’s generosity and selflessness - isn’t romanticizing anything. It’s just acknowledging that it’s a little more complex than that. A company I once worked for offered a rehearsal space to our direct competitor (a competitor we hadn’t had great relations with) when a bit of bad luck put them in danger of not having a space to rehearse and canceling their show. And none of us thought twice about it. Our reasoning was tribal. Competitors or not, they were theatre people and that’s just what you do. I’ve been taught that as a supervisor I should hire people that our better than me. That wouldn’t make sense in a ruthlessly competitive environment. There’s a lot about theatre that’s harsh. But that’s not the whole truth.
Honestly, this article, in particular its tone, seems much more reflective of the author than theatre in general.
This article, while somewhat brash and overdramatic, makes a lot of really great points about the competitive work environment of theatre. I think every career is competitive, but the entertainment industry especially experiences the most push and pull for employment. In an industry where your talent and ability to perform in the space are added to the other contributing factors (such as age, experience, or special skills) to getting hired, the stakes immediately become higher and the fight becomes more personal. I think that’s what’s at the bottom of all of this, that the entertainment industry is a more personal environment and therefore is more competitive. I do think, however, that not all of the competition we see is healthy, and the work environment should be viewed as collaborative more than competitive. This is something that we as an industry and as the next generation of workers in that industry can strive for.
This article really highlights the intensely competitive side of theater, but I think that over-stressing this arguably unavoidable quality can lead to unhealthy and detrimental practices as well. I think it's important to be competitive in the sense that you want to strive to be the best, but we must be wary of competition that leads to an unhealthy sense of ego or cutthroat behavior. Despite theater's inherent competition, it is also inherently collaborative, and cannot succeed without people who are not only willing to work together, but are adept at doing so. Someone who is pathologically competitive in an unhealthy way can often prove to be more of a detriment to a production than a help. We need to find a balance between competition and collaboration, and bring out the best in each other rather than tearing each other down.
Theatre is a competitive place. When multiple people are vying for one role, it is actually impossible that it doesn’t become competitive. Another side of it that is massively competitive is the goal of every actor to perform better than the day before. Each person makes a commitment to continually progress and refine their skills, and that, within itself, is a sort of competition. All of that being said, theatre is also a space in which there is much more than that single goal to “win”. It is about maintaining your ability and doing better once you are there. Once you have your spot in that room, it’s about coming together with the other people working on the piece. It is simply impossible to work on profound and emotional pieces in a space if everyone cannot to let go of their competitive edge.
"Theater is work, theater is pain, theater is blood, sweat, and tears" This is exactly why I personally believe that stamping the word competition on to the art of theatre is both annoying and rather false. In High School settings, competitive theatre often times pushes young actors to the best of their ability, but once theatre evolves and people grow up, competitive theatre just seems petty and rather childish. Though there are award shows like the Tony's, its important to acknowledge that those shows are simply made to recognize theatre that is ground breaking and fresh. Other than that, its really counter productive to have an extremely competitive environment when it comes to designers and directors, as it just creates a divide where people are making theatre for the sake offing better than the people, not being groundbreaking or creating work that can be appreciated by colleagues. Let friendly completion continue, but anything else is just immature and unnecessary in the theatre world.
Like most forms of competition in the world, it pushes one to be better, tries harder, and learn from others that are successful. Life won't let you get by just by existing. I disagree with some that say if you "need" the job your in it for the wrong reasons. If you need to eat, live, have a home, have a family, then you need the job. Sometimes this means that you "need" to change your tactics or the way your approaching something, but other than that should not be held against someone. It is because of this "competition" that we are forced to become better people. In theatre, we host festivals such as KCACTF and say that it's not a competition and we are all in it together. However, if you have ever been a part of these things, it is very clearly a competition. It may not be a contact sport, but it feels like it at times. The critical difference between theatre competition and other types in the world is that after the winner has been found theatre family is and should be supportive of everyone's efforts to get where they did and notice the little things that each person did to help get them there. This is the critical difference between theatre and so many other forms of competition in the world.
While I do agree with this article's assertion that theatre is very competitive, I don't necessarily believe that it is inherently competitive-- I also believe that theatre can be created entirely without competition. Yes, popular shows from well-known theaters present an inherent competition simply from having multiple people audition for a role. While I don't think that competition is a completely negative thing-- you cannot go through the world without experiencing it-- I think it can be helpful to reduce or eliminate competition surrounding the design team and among directors and managers. To me, a show works best when it's design aspects work together than when in opposition with one another, or not as stand-alone features of the show. Design elements should complement each other to invite the audience into the world of the play, unless a clash of creative features is intentional to make a point. I agree that theatre can be blood, sweat, and tears at times, but to categorize it as ONLY this is completely overbearing.
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